Second Green Revolution

The Second Green Revolution is an effort to invest in increasing food production in poor countries via crop breeding (using genetic engineering), irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides. Calls for a second Green Revolution began only a decade after the original Green Revolution ended, and emphasized that a second Green Revolution would include genetic engineering almost from the start. However, calls for a second Green Revolution did not truly begin picking up steam until the early 2000s.

As early as 2005, Africa was identified as the focus of the second Green Revolution. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation formed the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) in 2006, and Kofi Annan became its leader in 2007. The second Green Revolution is the same as the original, in that it began as with efforts by the Rockefeller Foundation and the U.S. government soon followed suit, and that it involves the transfer of unsustainable U.S. industrial agriculture techniques and inputs to poor countries. However, it is different in that it focuses on increasing the productivity of smallholder farmers and on women farmers. (The original Green Revolution mostly benefited large, wealthy farmers.)

Related Sourcewatch articles

 * Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
 * Rockefeller Foundation
 * Ford Foundation
 * U.S. Agency for International Development
 * Norman Borlaug
 * World Bank
 * Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
 * Chicago Council on Global Affairs
 * Robert Paarlberg
 * Using Hunger to Promote Genetic Engineering

External Articles

 * Donna Gordon Blankinship, "Gates Foundation spends $1.7B on farming in Africa," San Diego Union Tribune, June 1, 2011.
 * Faizan Ahmad, "Bihar will spawn 2nd Green Revolution, hopes Kalam," The Times of India, May 3, 2011.
 * Gregory M. Lamb, "How science could spark a second Green Revolution," Christian Science Monitor, April 6, 2010.
 * "Roots Key to Second Green Revolution," ScienceDaily, February 23, 2010.
 * Thomas L. Dobbs, "Challenges facing a second Green Revolution: Expanding the reach of organic agriculture," Crop Management, 2006.
 * Peter Steinhart, "The Second Green Revolution," New York Times, October 25, 1981.